Free newsletter:

Web Evangelism Bulletin

src="http://www.internetevangelismday.com/images/balloonbottom.png">

Free articles

We offer a range of free articles and related resources for anyone wishing to write about online evangelism. You may also use any of this blog's posts as short filler items in print media.Read moreTo reference any blog post in print, you can shorten the URL to IEDay.net/blog/ archives/1234 (of course replacing '1234' with the actual posting number).

Church website testing tool

Use our free self-assessment tool to provide you with a customized report on ways to make your church site reach out into your community.Read more

Les Miserables film opportunities – use this incredibly redemptive story

[Please Share] Movie releases are a major opportunity to start conversations and point to parallels about God, Jesus and His redemptive purposes: reasons. (Find out more about God here.)

If we are planning blog or web articles, or focus spots in meetings, we must prepare ideally before the release date, since few movies remain on general release for more than two or three weeks, though some may run a bit longer if it is highly successful. The window of opportunity is very limited.

To help prepare, you can often read pre-release reviews. Advance showings do happen – often for local newspaper critics. Ask around – perhaps you can get in!

Les Miserables released December

The film version of the musical released on 25 December in N America (mid-January in most of Europe) and the story is so well known that we can plan before seeing the film. Since the musical has been translated into 21 languages, the film (and later the DVD) will be available with multi-language subtitles. Having seen the film, I can commend it highly. It’s the only movie we’ve been to that we agreed afterwards, “We must go and see it again next week.”

So this is a major worldwide opportunity. Les Miserables is not only the most most popular musical ever, but also a serious and deep story, with a hugely redemptive message.

Now is the time to be planning how to use the story to illuminate these redemptive truths. There are opportunities for blog posts, website articles (great for your church website, for instance), as well as sermon illustrations, small group talks, Facebook conversations, or specific outreach events. Yet very few people have posted outsider-friendly articles about the book or the musical. Culturewatch ministry Damaris has an article. See info box for vital new resources ▶

Please share any others you know of. The Christian books and articles referenced lower down this page are seem mainly ‘insider’ works for believers.

The book itself is a long but rewarding read. You can get the original English translation (and Victor Hugo’s French text) free on Kindle and in other ebook formats, or read it online. More recent translations are widely available in paperback, including the new oneby Julie Rose.

The film (trailer below) necessarily cuts some of the full book story, but follows the stage version closely, with some new/modified lyrics by the original writers. Universal Films have released additional extracts of the film on their YouTube channel.

(You can watch the stage version on DVD as static performances, both the 10th and 25th anniversary concerts. You can find most of the 10th anniversary performances on YouTube.) The libretto is also online.

Please also share this post on Facebook, Twitter and Google +1 using the one-click links below. You can also automatically syndicate our blog posts to your Facebook Timeline (and/or your Twitter stream) in three easy steps.

You are welcome to use this item on your own blog as a guest blog post, or republish in any online or print newsletter. We also offer other free articles.

9 comments to Les Miserables film opportunities – use this incredibly redemptive story

[…] Damaris about new Life of Pi film.
Les Miserables movie gives amazing opportunity to demonstrate
redemptive parallels. And coming shortly on that page -
free-to-re-use materials about the film from Damaris and […]

In fact there is an equivalence between Eponine’s love for Marius and Jean Valjean’s for Cosette. In an earlier version of the film (and probably original to the novel), his expectation is that when she becomes an adult she will marry him. Apparently, in Victor Hugo’s time this was an acceptable thing to do.

SO, with this factoid added into the cinematic portrayal of Les Mis, what the revolutionary segment of is about is the contrast of Eponine’s begrudging relinquishment of Marius with Jean Valjean’s risking of his own life to bring to life Cosette’s and Marius’s love.

To value the happiness of others and not just one’s own happiness is the moral played out here.

In our culture where the dogma preached in every commercial is selfishness, and being the lone wolf fighting life’s battles on one’s own is the ideal that is routinely preached, the notion that our own happiness is bound up with the happiness of other is truely a radical notion.

What I am not clear on is which verses in the Bible one would tie this in with. This moral doesn’t make the 10 commandments and is not directly evidenced by Jesus — whose self-sacrifice is closer to Fantine’s than Jean Valjean’s. There certainly is the verse about was love is, but those are words whose meaning remains abstract without someone to bring them to life for us.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

It’s not part of the “Ten” commandments, but according to Jesus it is the Second Commandment. ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3,4)

Please click on 'Recommend' button to say on your FB Wall that you like this blog.

Please also join our
Facebook Fan Page:

Add this blog's headlines to your webpage or blog:

You can add this animated headline box to your site with this
easy Headline Animator code or a larger box displaying latest blog postings, by adding our simple code to your own site. Alternatively, please make a normal page or blogroll link using this code.

We will give a rank-boosting back link to any site using any of these methods to link.

News release
Please use this short
news release in newsletters, websites, other blogs or your Facebook profile. (You may also copy or adapt blog posts as filler items in print or online media.)

Our Paper.li daily: subscribe by email | embed on your blog or site:

Best Christian blogs

Recommended blogs

Alltop Church
A feed syndicating 100s of top Christian blogs on one page